OUTNUMBERED volume 4: A Zombie Apocalypse Series Read Free

ever seen." She looked at me in awe. I was at a loss for words. I suspected what we'd discovered, and the very idea frightened and repulsed me. I've never turned to religion for strength, but I quietly prayed to God that I was wrong.
    I studied the female zombie on the floor. She was full bodied, no sign of rot on her flesh. Several bite marks on her arms and body looked old and dry. She'd been rather plain but not ugly, about eighteen or twenty I guessed. The ratty, simple, pink cotton dress she wore was filthy. It had white buttons from the waist up the bodice. A large bloody stain had soaked the front of the fabric high on her thighs and turned brown as it dried. When she fell she'd landed on her back; her left leg was straight out and her right leg was pointed away from the left with her knee bent and her foot almost touching her left knee. Frances followed my stare. "No. You don't think. Surely not. No, that can't have happened.... Oh, my God, Tom."
    I said, "Give me a hand, but be careful to not get fluids on you." We grabbed the bottom hem of the tattered pink dress where it lay bunched above the female's knees and carefully pulled it upward to her hips. The placenta and fetal membranes lay halfway expelled from the female body. "Are you accepting the same thing I'm having to?"
    Frances dropped the pink material and straightened as she moved back several feet. "It's not possible for a zombie to give birth, is it? God almighty, tell me it's not possible. They're dead, they can't have sex and then have children. They're dead, damn it!"
    "Can't they? They're dead, but they walk and bite."
    Frances jerked when I laid my hand on her shoulder. "Don't freak out on me. Apparently it is possible. We've seen changes in the zombies from the rotting hulks we originally encountered to a new fast running type. Lately, we've come upon a few zombies that move fast, are more coordinated, and don't rot like the others. And they're silent when they attack. I suppose mating and birthing could be another step in the mutation or evolution taking place." I stepped back to the other two adult zombies and flipped them onto their backs with the toe of my heavy boot. Each looked almost normal except for the bloodshot eyes, filthy clothing and skin coupled with a complete lack of any form of personal hygiene or grooming. All three of the adult zombies had chunks of flesh missing where they had been attacked by other carnivorous zombies. The wounds looked old because the flesh had dried and cracked. But strangely, they hadn't begun to rot. I squatted between Barry and Carla. Each had big ugly depressions where flesh had been torn away. The wounds were still red meat but had begun to dry and turn dark
    We turned back to the naked, mucus covered infant. It was on all fours, crawling toward us. Its jaws worked as it looked up. It couldn't have been more than a few hours old, but it had teeth and snarled at us as it smacked its jaws together noisily.
    "Go out to the truck, there's a digital camera in the glove box. We'll take pictures to show everyone, or they won't grasp the full gravity of what this means." Frances turned to leave. "On second thought, I'll go with you incase there are more of these quiet fast movers hanging around out there. These are another new fact of life we need to be prepared for every minute."
    Minutes later we returned and found the baby had crawled back to the corner where we'd discovered it. We clicked off thirty-two photos before the batteries got too low to power the flash. It was time to quit because by then we had enough pictures to sicken and scare the hell of out everyone at Deliverance.
    Frances said, "I guess it's not impossible for the undead, but I swear that ugly little monster has grown several inches in the last half hour. It's already moving like a ten month old baby.
    "Well," I said, "I'll put a stop to that." The blast of my .45 caliber reverberated through the house as it ended the little monster's live